Galaxy fold oh my goodness a complete
shift in smartphones you already know
you watch the unboxing video now I'm
playing with the thing I'm getting so
many people saying like how do you even
compare this thing like what do you put
it up against the closest we can do
right now is stack it up against the
other flagship devices that exist and
for me this is kind of useful I feel
like just putting these devices together
booting up YouTube you can kind of get a
sense for how the fold
stacks up against these other phones
this on the far left is the brand new
Galaxy fold fold it out it's on a
youtube home feed right now next to that
you have the current phone that I'm
using that's the p30 pro next to that
that's the latest a galaxy s 10 plus and
then on far right I phone 10 s max and
they're all in the YouTube home feed as
you can tell the the watch window that
exists right on a home feed without
turning the device into landscape is
almost as big as these phones are
completely so if I take this iPhone for
example I flip it and kind of drop it in
there yes it extends beyond the frame of
the galaxy fold but not by much you can
think about this as like always having a
large scale landscape device in your
hands except in portrait mode now the
aspect ratio is is quite bizarre as well
because what happens is when you flip
this thing into actual landscape of
course it gets much larger but the
aspect ratio is not that of a typical
smartphone you know typical smartphones
have been getting more and more narrow
recently so much so that a lot of
content creators are actually producing
their videos in that slim almost 2x1
aspect ratio now it kind of goes the
opposite direction where as you can see
you have black bars on the top and
bottom and what you really want is a
taller video but nonetheless this gives
you an idea of how much video you can
fit on the screen and 16 by 9 and it's a
ton in fact so much so that this
video watching experience like this is
more similar to a tablet than it is to a
smartphone as I'm sure you can tell now
when you go ahead and let's say you take
the iPhone you can see you actually end
up with a much slimmer image that's the
biggest difference so things get pinched
this way and you end up with the black
bars on the other side now granted it's
important to note that within YouTube
there's no way currently to fill the
display I'm sure this will be updated in
in an app update for YouTube itself as
well as other apps that start to take
into consideration devices like the fold
but for now that's your maximum display
size whereas on these other devices you
crop in like this in order to fill the
frame and you end up with an image kind
of similar for video watching granted
it's important to remember that on the
iPhone or these other two devices if you
do crop into a video you are actually
losing some of the video on the top and
the bottom I'm sure you're already aware
of this that's if you want to see the
full video so this is a better
one-to-one representation of how much
extra screen you're dealing with on the
phone now thinness when it's folded out
it's actually thinner it's ever so
slightly thinner than the iPhone it's
just a bit fatter than the fold when
folded out same thing goes for the p30
Pro it's a little bit fatter and the
galaxy s 10 plus is almost identical
another surprising thing to me with this
device has been how light it is like
it's it's one area where I was skeptical
when I saw the original clip I'm like is
that gonna be fatiguing to hold it for
periods of time you know is it gonna be
comfortable and the weight of it has a
lot to do with that and the weight
distribution and the truth is it's super
comfy to hold you feel like you could
kind of be set up like this right here
for a while without any problems of
course it's also important to have the
comparison in folded mode because it
looks really tall in pictures I expected
it to be a lot taller than it is it's
similar in height to any flagship large
size
smartphone that's out there right now
now granted in the folded mode it's
quite a bit fatter as you can see on
that angle right there that said the
pocket test kind of surprising I'll show
you for all intents and purposes I mean
yeah there's more of a thing there you
don't feel any different it doesn't feel
too big in your pocket just for
comparison that's the pocket test galaxy
bold this is pocket test 10's mags it's
super easy in the pocket again an area
where I was skeptical and it turned out
better than I expected
now speakers also very important I think
video watching is gonna be a big part of
why people pick up this particular
device will bring up the same video on
all of them to test the speakers or how
about the fold unboxing why not now the
other thing I should mention right now
is that I didn't necessarily expect to
watch most of my video on the fold in
portrait mode I would have thought I
would flip it into landscape but what
ends up happening is it's as big as
you're used to with the smartphone
almost in portrait mode to the point
where you're kind of happy to leave it
pause so that you can go down and either
scroll the suggested videos or scroll
the comments so you can kind of be doing
two things at once which you already
kind of do on your smartphone at least a
lot of people do except here the frame
is quite small to the point where you do
feel the need to flip the phone around
on a frequent basis watching YouTube on
any of these smart phones even though
these are the biggest ones that most
people have let's do volume test now
they do he's got a special package today
you pulled some strings would you look
at this oh my goodness in front of me
this is a hole this is a leap who's been
waiting for I've been waiting for myself
talked about this thing a lot one people
have been waiting for I've been waiting
for myself what better way to find and
now is here it's in front of me this is
a hole this is a leap and if the
speakers are their flagship territory
I'd say they're a bit better I would say
that they are better than
these three devices in terms of clarity
of course you have true stereo speakers
on here so holding it in landscape mode
is going to improve their performance
even more as you can tell it's a
consumption device that's where this
thing really shines that brings me to
the next thing I want to mention
actually which along with video which is
the obvious reason to have a big display
keyboard was a surprising place as well
you can see what a typical keyboard size
looks like on a flagship device but look
what happens over on the galaxy fold as
you can tell it's a split keyboard now
you can change this you can go to a
keyboard more like either of these if
you choose to this for me is the best
layout and as you can tell if the thumb
typing is unreal in this scenario the
quick brown you get the idea from a
Productivity standpoint this is big
because this is one of the reasons that
people reach for a laptop tablet or
bigger device is because typing on a
phone has its limitations when you go
into landscape of course what happens is
you lose most of your display so if you
were trying to go through a bunch of
emails productivity stuff you find
yourself scrolling through the email
that sits there and you don't end up
with that much bigger of a keyboard
anyhow not only do you get a bigger
consumption device you get a bigger
productivity devices while you're going
to see more it's kind of like two smart
phones it's kind of like a tablet in a
smart phone form factor so now the
interesting thing on the web is that you
kind of lose out on some of the
advantage of the bigger display because
it's loading up the mobile site you're
limited to that particular design what
you'll probably do with this device is
actually trigger the desktop version and
it's big enough that the desktop version
actually works pretty well and as you
can see here you now I'm getting way
more information on the display
comparatively to this where I probably
have to scroll a bit more but in order
to truly take advantage you kind of have
to treat this like a tablet when it's
folded out or like a laptop now I've got
Instagram loaded up obviously the layout
is identical but the experience is kind
of different just because of the scale
so obviously on the fold side
you got bigger images but interesting
lead you don't necessarily have more you
don't see as many and this could be a
thing again where the app developer
could change this and go in and have it
show up differently for the fold not
sure that it will but as of right now on
these flagship devices you actually see
more in the feed just smaller versions
of the images now if you go to the
discover page for example it's kind of
more the same you get bigger thumbnails
unfold but you see more in one glance on
the other three flagships because videos
on Instagram are square they take up
almost the entire display of the fold
now comparatively you'll see that the
square I mean it really only takes up
half the screen it really truly is
almost like two flagship smartphones
stacked beside each other it's very
close since you basically do have two
smartphones pinned together that fold
out you might want to multitask instead
of only doing one thing at once all
right so here's what it looks like with
two apps open this is kind of wild now
you can adjust it as well like this so
now I have the mobile version of this
website that I'm scrolling while
watching YouTube click on a video scroll
over I mean it's really like two
smartphones side-by-side but you want to
get real crazy you can add a third app
to it I could go ahead and open up the
Play Store and now you've got three apps
on the display instead of two or one I
don't know maybe you got to have a chat
open maybe you have slack or what's
happening one keep it open in the corner
while watching a video and also browsing
the web maybe you're crazy like that I
think two apps is more reasonable and
probably is going to be utilized more
frequently than three but at least they
let you do it it's completely up to you
you have the screen real estate so go
ahead and get after it these on the
left-hand side are very mature versions
of what this might eventually be you're
looking at version
1.0 in the case of the fold but
surprisingly it seems like it's already
a good version like a surprisingly
polished version for something that's a
1.0 type of device and that's the part
that's impressive to me for something
this ambitious that it can be polished
at all now I don't know having played
with it how much functionality I'm gonna
get out of the closed off phone this is
a bizarre situation here it's like when
how often are you going to use that you
know in the short time that I've had it
I've realized you just flip it open
almost for everything kind of like a
laptop you stop thinking about the fact
that you're flipping it open and the
screen and the real estate is so nice to
have that you kind of feel handicapped
being on the exterior display so you
just pick it up and flip it quick and
you just operate like that and the cool
thing is you just want to open and close
it frequently anyways I'm gonna be that
guy opening and closing this thing it's
just there's something about the
mechanical aspect of that which is just
quite satisfying in a bizarre way so
there it is it's the Galaxy fold that's
how it stacks up to the other flagships
in the marketplace once again that's the
iPhone 10's max p30 pro from huawei this
is the samsung galaxy s 10 and this is
the latest player on the block I can't
wait to use it more it is the Galaxy
fold it's a whole new thing guys I've
been this excited for a smart phone in a
while it's just fun it fun to play with
something this different